


all because of you

by evilythedwarf



Series: Five Loves: Kate Austen [2]
Category: Lost
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-18
Updated: 2011-10-18
Packaged: 2017-10-24 18:17:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/266450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilythedwarf/pseuds/evilythedwarf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>even at 12, Kate knew that growing up to be mommy to Tom’s perfect daddy was never going to happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all because of you

**Author's Note:**

> Kate/Tom, for 5_loves [2/5]: smile

Even at 12, Kate knew that growing up to be mommy to Tom’s perfect daddy was never going to happen but he looked at her and she felt warm inside, the way no one managed because she was tough and a grown up [but really, she skipped those steps that are supposed to build character and all that and maybe that’s why she was always such a mess – when you have to wake up in the morning and check to see your mother hasn’t been beaten to death sacrifices are made  **and that’s alright** ]. Tom was always a step ahead of her and he had all these feelings she couldn’t ever really figure out and he loved her, always and forever and how’s that for a constant, huh? She clung to it when she had nothing else.

The problem is: she had nothing but him for so long that when he wasn’t there anymore – when her nights were spent with the pillow over her head so that she wouldn’t hear the world outside her room, when he wasn’t 5 minutes away but at the other side of the country – Kate had to learn all over again that it was her against the world and when it’s you on one side and reality with its very scary monsters on the other? Well, Tom, really, was he expecting anything other than a cold welcome and bruising kisses? A little hate too, every time he showed up so sure of himself, knowing she’d be there waiting for him.

The problem is: she grew up too much too fast and he wasn’t there when she needed him, so she learned how not to need him and. 

And that’s how love stories end. But.

But when the screams got so  **loud**  and she knew she’d kill him – him who plagued her nightmares and who fucked up her life so  **so** much so  **so**  early – she ran away. Ran because it was what she did best and she ended up in that lonely spot in the forest where they used to go and she let herself miss him so damn much it  **hurt** , inside, in that place she didn’t really know because she was brave and strong and tough, but the one thing she never stopped fearing was her own weak heart.

He went away, again and again and again –  _pre-med and then med school, it’s going to be long Katie_ , he explained and  _shut up_ , she told him – and every time she had to teach herself all over again that she could be strong all by herself and that she didn’t need no smile from him to know someone, once, loved her just because.

The problem is: he always came back. She always ended up needing him all over again and he was that… the innocence she never really had and all those times he dried her tears after daddy left her again and again and again, and really, in all seriousness, is it any wonder she has abandonment issues the size of… 

This is how it works: when her daddy left her she had Tom and when Tom left her she had her daddy and the forest and the closest thing to religion anyone ever cared to teach her and one day she loved her daddy so much that the world fell down all around her and where was Tom then? Their love story ended the day he came back – for good, this time, and wouldn’t she have been so happy to see him? – and she wasn’t there waiting for him. Except.

Except, well, one day she came back and there was no one waiting for her either because he had a house and a wife and a baby boy who looked like him and the air was heavy with all they didn’t get to do and all the children they didn’t have and the years they didn’t get to spend together and… That doesn’t matter because even at 12 she knew there were no happily ever afters for them.

  
♥

**Author's Note:**

> 11 JUNE 2008


End file.
